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Max Verstappen had during the Austrian Grand Prix suffered a lot from tire wear and could therefore not make a real fist against Ferrari. According to Dr. Helmut Marko, there was nothing structurally wrong with the car, but it was just “a mistake in the setting”. He says this in the run-up to the Grand Prix of France.
At the Red Bull Ring in Austria, Verstappen seemed to have the best papers after his glorious victory during the sprint race, but on Sunday things went a little differently. Not Verstappen, but rival Charles Leclerc walked away with the win. And if Carlos Sainz had not fallen out, there was a real chance that the Spaniard would also have finished ahead of Verstappen. During the race, Verstappen suddenly had to deal with a high tire degradation. His tires wore out a lot faster than those of the Ferraris, leaving Verstappen behind. Marko now knows where the problem came from.
Error in the adjustment cause problems Verstappen
Verstappen’s problems in Austria were analyzed by the team afterwards and the conclusion was a striking one: according to the man from Graz, there was not necessarily something wrong with the car, but a mistake was made in the set-up. This adjustment would have ensured that Verstappen’s tires became extra warm. “The rear tires were just overheated, that was a mistake in the adjustment,” Marko revealed to the Small newspapera news medium from his native country.
Red Bull was surprised
According to Marko, that adjustment error ensured that Red Bull could not continue the success of the sprint race. “After the sprint we couldn’t react the way we wanted,” he says. “The rain then washed away the rubber, which also made the situation more difficult.” But Marko thinks it will all go his way again this weekend in France, because he was not so impressed by Ferrari in Austria. “We were slow, Ferrari not very fast,” said the man from Graz.
Whether it was actually a wrong adjustment is doubtful, because in France Red Bull also seems to suffer more from tire degradation than Ferrari. However, the Austrian team still has a free practice session ahead of it tomorrow, in which the weather can experiment a bit, in an attempt to spare the tires as much as possible.
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